To Burn
by the-original-hufflepuff
Summary: The bed would have been too intimate. Missing scene from Never Again; Scully/Jerse, but only in a physical sense. With hints of Scully/Mulder. Rating for sex.


**_to burn;_**

They fuck on the couch in the dank living-room of the apartment he still struggles to refer to as 'his'. The bed would have been too intimate.

He's always hated the word 'fucking', and he tastes it as he thinks it, and its bitterness spoils the sweet taste of her as their tongues fight a violent battle with each other, battle charged with lust, lust fuelled by misery (_but maybe that's a good thing, because there's nothing sweet about this and nothing sweet about her, she's damaged goods like he is and that's why they're here in the first place_). There's really no other word Ed can think to describe what he and Dana are in the middle of; copulating suggests a couple, which they are not; intercourse is too clinical, and he suspects 'clinical' is part of what she's trying to escape from, if only for one night; and of course making love is completely out of the question. To his knowledge, they have but one main thing in common – desperation – and she hasn't even gone as far as to acknowledge that in as many words. They are fucking each other because they're both desperate to feel something other than the dissatisfaction of their everyday lives.

He doesn't speak, and neither does she, at first. It's enough somehow to feel her clawing at his shirt then gripping his shoulders like a vice, see her eyes darken with raw lust as he pulls her into his lap, hear her breath hitch as he slides roughly into her. He feels like he's cheating on Cindy, and the vindictive pleasure that thought gives him, the fact that he can pretend to himself that this would hurt her in the same way she had hurt him by leaving and taking his kids away, makes him thrust with increased vigour (_increased fire, fire like the furnace, orange, orange like her hair and that pretty face would mean nothing if it was a pile of ashes in the grate_). Dana mumbles something, a word he didn't quite catch, a name perhaps, not his and not aimed at him in any way, and her passion seems to increase. He doesn't know for certain, but he thinks that maybe he and Dana have reckless spite in common too.

He's getting close, their breathing shallower and shallower with every frenzied, animalistic motion, and every time he pounds into her he can hear all his stupid mistakes echoing in his head along with their mingled, guttural moans and it makes him crazy, makes him thrust harder and harder and oh, they're not fucking they're rutting, rutting like animals and the voice in his head won't shut up and Dana can make the tattoo shut up maybe she can help him lose himself too maybe he can lose himself in her and never again never again never again…

And then she says that word again, clearer this time, and it is a name and it's not his and the fact that he's fucking this random woman he met in a seedy tattoo parlour suddenly hits him full force as he orgasms, breathless and looking at the wall, a stain on the carpet, the coffee mug he forgot to put away before she arrived, and finally looking straight at her despite himself.

She's in town visiting an aunt. Her piercing blue eyes look damp and distant. She's a medical doctor. Her sensible red bob is in disarray, loose strands of hair falling haphazardly over her face. She's attracted to authority figures, and she likes to lose control from time to time. She called another man's name when she came.

Dana calmly slides off of him after a few moments, and they sit a bit apart on the sofa awkwardly, almost-naked and silent. He's never had a one-night-stand before – he'd venture a guess she hasn't either, but he can't be sure – and he's not sure of the protocol in these situations. To tell the truth he just feels empty and blank, and he can't quite believe he ever thought fucking this beautiful, desperate stranger would really make any of his problems go away. Maybe it's not just that tattoo he needs to burn away with the end of his cigarette; maybe he should be the one to burn. Maybe Dana should; maybe they're the same in some twisted, fucked-up way (_burn her burn her burn her_). She clears her throat.

"Thanks for a lovely night, Ed," she says, calmly and simply, composure evidently gained back, and she slips the nearest shirt to her on, before realising it's his and trying to take it back off abruptly. He shakes his head.

"No, it's okay, you can wear it," She smiles gratefully at him for saving her the indignity of undressing again now she's back in control and pulls her pants on, before padding off into his bedroom. He decides to stay on the couch, true to his earlier word, and he only just manages to resist the temptation to go to her and ask her who Mulder is and what he did that screwed her up so badly that she ended up here in the first place.

* * *

I wrote this last year and posted it at my lj fic archive, and realised that I never posted it over here. Not that there's much of an X-Files fandom on ffnet anyway, but I thought I might as well. Reviews are appreciated a lot!


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